This column is part of Globe Careers' Leadership Lab series, where executives and experts share their views and advice about leadership and management. Follow us at @Globe_Careers. Find all Leadership Lab stories at tgam.ca/leadershiplab
There has been no shortage of high-octane examples of the dark, intimate relationship between power and corruption in recent headlines.
The two don't always go hand in hand, but they are never far from each other – corruption hovers around power like an invisible force field. History has shown that it can be difficult to resist the pull to the dark side.
Look at Canada's scandal-ridden Senate. Senators are by all accounts intelligent, accomplished individuals who have been appointed to the Senate after distinguishing themselves in their private lives and careers. Yet 30 senators have come under scrutiny from Canada's auditor general for allegedly filing nearly $1-million worth of inappropriate expenses.
Or consider the nine disgraced FIFA officials, indicted in May by the U.S. Department of Justice for allegedly taking $150-million in bribes while awarding FIFA broadcast rights. And what are we to make of former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who desperately clung to power during the scandal only to step down days after being re-elected for a fifth term?
But what is it about power that can corrupt one individual and not another? Why is it that all those other senators and FIFA officials were able to avoid the lure that drew their colleagues into scandal?
For business leaders to better understand how power sometimes corrupts – and avoid it – it's important to gain a better understanding of the motivations that drive us all.
The factors that motivate us typically form subconsciously by the time we hit the age of about five. These natural motives energize us and create levels of extreme personal satisfaction when we attain them. They set us up for patterns of long-term behaviour and why there are some aspects of our work we enjoy and find rewarding and why there are others we dread.
Leaders are driven by three primary motivating factors: a need for achievement against a standard of excellence, the satisfaction they get from building relationships and a strong desire to influence others.
This last motivator – power – comes in two forms: personal power, which we use to achieve our own goals, and socialized power, which we use to make a positive difference for others or society as a whole.
Leaders driven by socialized power are willing to sacrifice their self-interest for the good of the organization. They inspire others through compelling values and act with a broader purpose in mind.
Each of us is motivated by some measure of personal power – perhaps a drive to impress the boss, to land a promotion, or new responsibility. It's when we fail to keep this drive in check that it loses its effect as a positive motivator and can lead us to lose our way. We take actions to make ourselves feel more important, increase our own status while trying to impress others around us.
Think of former high-profile CBC host Evan Solomon. As a journalist, it seems likely he was in part drawn to his profession by a sense of socialized power – covering news and events for the greater good of his viewers. But Mr. Solomon was fired by CBC in June for allegedly taking secret commission payments on works of art sold to rich and famous people he dealt with as a host – a sign of personal power motivating him to act in his own interests instead of the larger purpose.
So how do business leaders grab the reins of power and stay on the straight and narrow, even if they find themselves steering in the wrong direction?
Self-awareness is key. It's crucial to understand the unconscious drivers behind their behaviours. Knowing your motivations will allow you to set new goals. But perhaps more important is helping leaders develop greater impulse control – the ability to delay gratification. As the now classic Stanford marshmallow study showed, young children who could delay eating a treat with the reward of getting two marshmallows later showed overall greater success in life when tracked over the next 15 years. Indeed, leaders who understand that simply because they can doesn't mean that they should, are seen by others as acting for the greater good more than acting for themselves.
While the need for power frees leaders to do great good for others, it can equally free leaders to use it to elevate themselves. And the behaviour becomes self-reinforcing – the more leaders use personal power to meet their own needs, the more those actions become their own reward. Just ask the FIFA officials, the senators or Mr. Solomon if it felt good when they received commissions or reimbursement for inappropriate expenses. You bet it did. And that is how power can corrupt and become the cocaine that destroys careers and families.
Often, we lose perspective on what brought us into our chosen field in the first place. Those who find themselves veering off course can often rediscover their way by returning to their roots. Those roots provide an anchor that can help us not eat the marshmallow and, in doing so, strengthen socialized power.
It's not impossible for leaders who have been pulled to the dark side to return to the light. Just as people change for the worse, we can change for the better – as long as the desire is there.
Rick Lash is the national director of the leadership and talent practice for Hay Group (@HayGroup) in Canada and co-leader of the annual Hay Group Best Companies for Leadership study.